Bacchiochi Seeks To Be GOP's Lieutenant Governor Candidate

WATERBURY- 08012014-- Republican Penny Bacchiochi, Connecticut State Representative from the 52nd district attends the Italian Festival at the Ponte Club in Waterbury Aug. 1, 2014.

WATERBURY- 08012014-- Republican Penny Bacchiochi, Connecticut State Representative from the 52nd district attends the Italian Festival at the Ponte Club in Waterbury Aug. 1, 2014. (DANIEL OWEN)

CHRISTOPHER KEATING, ckeating@courant.com

Ever since Rep. Linda Marie "Penny'' Bacchiochi stepped into the political spotlight more than two months ago, she has been involved in controversies.

These have included charges of racism and have led to sharp clashes with both of her opponents in a three-way race for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.

But Bacchiochi, 53, is trying to push aside the negativity and now says she is running "a 100 percent issues-based campaign'' in the final week before the Aug. 12 primary.

She says she has a strong chance of winning statewide because she has won six consecutive elections in a rural swing district in northern Connecticut that had been dominated for decades by Democrats. After her father lost two consecutive elections to well-known dairy farmer John Mordasky, Bacchiochi ran in 2002 and upset the 22-year incumbent legislator to capture the seat.

Bacchiochi lives in Stafford, where she grew up before attending the University of Connecticut and getting into politics. Her endorsement list of high-level Republicans is longer than her opponents', as more than 75 percent of Republican lawmakers are backing her candidacy.

A pro-gun fiscal conservative, Bacchiochi was endorsed by the National Rifle Association and the Coalition of Connecticut Sportsmen after voting against the gun control bill that was signed by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy in 2013. In a 60-second radio commercial, she repeatedly criticizes Malloy by name and says that he "infringed on the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens.''

Using the slogan "One penny can make a difference,'' Bacchiochi says in her campaign literature that while in the legislature she has constantly battled "against reckless tax increases, Common Core standards, and infringements on our constitutional rights.''

Bacchiochi is married to Emil Igwenagu, who played briefly for the Philadelphia Eagles in the National Football League after being a star all-conference player at the University of Massachusetts. During one of the casual dress days at the Capitol, Bacchiochi wore an NFL shirt with Igwenagu's name and number 41 emblazoned across the back.

But flareups have continued to distract from the substance of her campaign, cropping up in debates, commercials and campaign literature.

In the days leading up to the state Republican Party convention, Bacchiochi said the campaign of one of her opponents for lieutenant governor, Dave Walker of Bridgeport, was spreading the word that Republican delegates should not vote for her because she has a black husband and four black stepsons. Walker was outraged, demanding a full apology and saying the charge was "a complete untruth by a desperate candidate on the eve of the GOP convention.''

As word of her allegations spread across the convention floor, Bacchiochi retracted her statements, saying Walker never made any personal attacks against her family.

The issue blew over temporarily as Bacchiochi won the convention's endorsement, taking 51 percent of the vote. Former Groton Mayor Heather Bond Somers placed second with 31 percent of the vote, and Walker was third with 17 percent. All three candidates passed the minimum threshold of 15 percent and qualified for the primary.

Just as the initial controversy over racial politics had faded, Bacchiochi abruptly fired a paid campaign consultant after the consultant made racial comments about Somers on the Internet.

In a posting under her name that has since been taken down from Facebook, consultant Regina V. Ross Roundtree wrote: "People think what they think, but help the [Republican] party out and don't plaster your complete sense of privilege. This is an example of what is sometimes phrased as 'white privilege.' The way Heather talks. The arrogance and belittlement of Penny's and her family's feelings or any other person who has experienced racism.''

In a third incident, Bacchiochi recently updated her state financial disclosure filings after Courant columnist Kevin Rennie reported that she had never disclosed $27,000 in income when she worked for the 2012 U.S. Senate campaign of Republican Chris Shays.

Bacchiochi said in an interview that the missed filing was "just an oversight'' as she had correctly completed the forms for 2011 in a political campaign that spilled over into the 2012 calendar year.

Regarding the controversies, she said: "In most tough campaigns, issues bubble up. Voters want to talk about the issues that are important to them, not inter-candidate differences. The issues they want to hear about are how you're going to reduce taxes and boost the economy. Inter-candidate differences are not of interest to the voters. It's not what's important to them.''

She added: "I'm the endorsed candidate. Generally, the endorsed candidate takes a lot of the attacks.''

As a relatively low-key, freshman legislator in 2003, Bacchiochi stepped forward on the House floor and told the story of her first husband during a lengthy debate on legalizing medical marijuana. Bacchiochi brought the 151-member House chamber to silence when she said that no anti-nausea medications would help her husband when he was suffering from terminal bone cancer. After an operation, he became a paraplegic and suffered intense pain before he died.

"A courageous doctor took us aside, and he told us that my husband needed to try marijuana," Bacchiochi said at the time. "It was obtained at great legal risk to my family, but it worked, and it worked wonders. And it gave him back some quality of life. I will always remember how my husband suffered, and I will always remember if this legislature had passed a bill like this, he would have suffered less."

Her work on marijuana legislation has become a campaign issue that was criticized in a radio commercial by Somers. Bacchiochi received $113,000 over three years from the Marijuana Policy Project, which Somers described as "pro-marijuana D.C. lobbyists.''

But Bacchiochi included the group as one of her employers on her official disclosure forms and says, "Nothing I ever did in my 12 years [in the legislature] has ever been illegal or unethical. Ever."